In the second half, Michigan’s mistakes lead to a collapse against Maryland.
The Michigan men’s basketball team has used that as a blueprint to stay away from the narrow-margin collapses that have dogged it over the past two seasons. That is how they are going to break their current five-game losing streak.
The Wolverines did so for the second straight game. They led Maryland by 12 points at the half on Thursday night. However, the lead disappeared, the blueprint was lost, and the game ended precisely ten minutes later.
is a team that, according to Michigan coach Juwan Howard, will come out in the opening five minutes of the second half and lay the first punch. “We need to be hunting for singles, not home runs,” is our mantra.
A home run would have been sufficient to defeat the Terrapins. Nobody had to come up and make a huge shot or force a mistake. All the Wolverines needed to do was stay fundamentally strong: refrain from needless penalties, keep making the looks that are presented to them, and prevent defensive lapses from becoming collapses.
After graduate forward Olivier Nkamhoua passed to sophomore forward Tarris Reed Jr. along the right baseline, the two players were taken out of the game just over a minute into the half. It was an error Michigan could afford, leading by ten points. However, Reed became overly eager to fix it and was flagged for his third foul of the match, adding to his already costly error.
